


The Void Isn't Sober

by eraemilius



Series: The Wanderer [4]
Category: Undertale (Video Game)
Genre: Drunkenness, Gen, Non-Consensual Touching, Platonic Relationships
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-23
Updated: 2016-06-23
Packaged: 2018-07-16 20:05:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,408
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7282864
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eraemilius/pseuds/eraemilius
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A one-shot comedic epilogue to "Wandering in the Dark." During a birthday party at the skelebros' house, Mettaton is awaiting Papyrus' return when he is unexpectedly joined by Doctor Gaster, who's acting significantly more "friendly" than usual...among other things.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Void Isn't Sober

**Author's Note:**

> This is an epilogue I had had the idea for quite a while ago and never got around to writing (er, finishing) til now. It’s a short comedy epilogue with a bit of heart, that was mostly intended to explore exactly what Gaster would be like after a bit of alcohol. It got out of control very quickly.
> 
> **A WARNING: This piece involves a heavily intoxicated Gaster engaging (or attempting to engage) in some non-consensual acts with another character (big surprise which one).** If that subject matter causes you discomfort, I would discourage you from reading. It’s fairly light, but nonetheless, if you’ve read the fic you know that I write Gaster’s interest in science as a parody of sexual/romantic interest--especially notable since my Gaster is solidly asexual--so please read at your own discretion.

Sans and Papyrus’ little house really wasn’t ideal for hosting a party of this size, but Mettaton couldn’t help but be amused at them for trying. The lights were low, music was playing, the walls and ceiling were strung with streamers and balloons and banners. A cookout was taking up the entirety of the back yard and garden. The skeleton brothers had really gone all out for Frisk’s birthday, and it seemed as though half of the Underground had been invited to the party.

Mettaton stood against the wall in the hallway, leaning back, one heel against the wall behind him. He had dressed for the occasion: black slacks, pink boots, pink blouse, with a sparkling cluster of gemstones around his neck. Thankfully, in the low light, he wasn’t immediately recognizable from across the room, although he suspected it was only a matter of time until one of his fans approached him. In any case, it had allowed him a bit of peace while he waited for Papyrus to return after he’d been hustled off by Undyne several minutes earlier. 

He sipped at the glass of punch in his hand, watching the crowd mill about in the living room. Many of the guests were former residents of Snowdin: dogs and bears and other furry creatures who never would have lasted a day in Hotland. Mettaton quirked a smile. It was hard to believe there were still so many monsters living in the town at the foot of Mt. Ebbot…

Mettaton glanced up as he noticed someone weaving thru the crowd toward him and he smiled quietly to see Doctor Gaster approaching. It was hard to believe Gaster was even present for the party and not hauled up in his room or mysteriously absent altogether as he was wont to do when crowds were about. From the looks of it, it seemed the Doctor’s confidence was improving of late. Well, good for him, Mettaton thought. He was glad that the man who had been instated as Sans and Papyrus’ father was doing his best to be present on Frisk’s special day (although to be perfectly honest, Mettaton had yet to even see Frisk yet in the sea of monsters). 

“Good evening, Doctor,” Mettaton called over the music, smiling. “Enjoying yourself?”

Gaster looked a little worse for wear as he approached, though Mettaton wasn’t entirely surprised; it must have been enormously stressful for the monster to be at a party with so many people. Nonetheless, he was smiling, a somewhat...crooked smile, and he approached Mettaton directly, coming up close-- _uncomfortably_ close--and looking him wistfully in the eye. “You are,” Gaster began dreamily, and Mettaton nearly dropped his drink in shock when the words came out crisp and clean and perfectly understandable,“the most _fascinating_ invention that has ever come out of magic science.”

Mettaton gaped at him. For a moment, he thought for certain he must have imagined understanding the man, but Gaster’s words echoed in his head, clear as day. “Y...you’re--I can understand you!” he blurted unceremoniously.

“Can you?” Gaster asked, lifting a hand without invitation and touching Mettaton’s upper arm, caressing the edge of one of the overlapping panels with the sort of affectionate, interested look that Gaster tended to give a new piece of technology when he first encountered it.

Mettaton regarded him with mild discomfort. “...Doctor?”

Before Mettaton had much more opportunity to react, Gaster was practically on top of him, grasping his arm in both hands and leaning in closer than he had since the day of Mettaton’s ‘examination’ some months ago. “Do you have ANY idea,” Gaster began anew, and now that he was quite close, Mettaton could smell the alcohol on him, “how much I wanted to be the one to invent something like you? You’re BRILLIANT! Oh, I wish I could have put my name on you!”

“D-doctor,” Mettaton muttered with increasing discomfort, shifting both feet to the floor and trying to slip away; Gaster followed, unperturbed, holding on tightly. Mettaton smiled wryly. “Been drinking, have you?”

Gaster smiled up at him obligingly, leaning his cheek against Mettaton’s arm. “You’re fabulous...”

“Yes, I know,” Mettaton muttered awkwardly, trying to wrench his arm free with little success.

“I tried SO HARD to isolate the Soul,” Gaster went on loudly, seeming entirely deaf to anything Mettaton had to say, “and I just couldn’t do it. But Doctor Alphys!! She did it with NO PROBLEMS, like it was EASY. Easy!” Mettaton flushed and struggled to put his other hand over Gaster’s mouth, but he was still holding his punch and there was little he could do to silence the monster. Gaster only leaned in closer, forcing Mettaton to lean away again; he reeked of wine. “Would you mind a little follow-up inspection? I wrote up the original drafts for that project, you know. The Soul transfer. Oh, of course you know! You’ve got my blueprints.” Even before he’d finished talking, he was reaching for Mettaton’s Soul container where it peeked out from beneath the robot’s blouse. Mettaton squirmed and seeing no other options, dropped his glass in order to grab the skeleton’s wrist and stop him. His drink spilled out on the floor at their feet. Gaster glanced down at it, then back at Mettaton, tilting his head.

Mettaton grinned at him wryly. Gaster’s behavior toward him was usually less than enjoyable, but this was something new altogether. “Alright Doctor,” he said gently, “alright. How about I find Papyrus, and we get someone to help you to be--”

“I’d so _desperately_ like to take you apart.” 

Mettaton stared at him, horrified, til Gaster barked out a sudden laugh and Mettaton jumped and tried to tug free of him again.

“Of course,” Gaster continued, still talking too loudly and holding on too strongly, “I can’t DO that, you’re a person. And you can’t take apart a person. Not while they’re alive, at least. There are ethics involved!” He took a deep breath and let it out again in a defeated sigh. “But a man can dream.”

Mettaton stared at him, having legitimately no idea what to make of this whole situation. Then Gaster murmured a little ‘oh’ and he stumbled forward into the robot and the wrist in Mettaton’s grasp suddenly went soft. Mettaton released him, startled, making a little sound of disgust as he tugged free of the other hand that had held his arm--now melting and dripping onto the floor. “W-what the hell?!”

“Nothing to worry about,” Gaster said nonchalantly, glancing down at himself as his body seemed to struggle to remain upright, little bits of black dripping from his arms, his hands melting together. “Perfectly alright. May I take another look at your Soul?”

“What?! No!” Mettaton yelped as Gaster abruptly came forward and slumped against him, reaching for his Soul container. With effort, the robot managed to awkwardly position himself out of reach, stumbling back into the hallway and pushing at the rapidly-melting monster with one hand.

“I promise I will use the utmost of care,” Gaster said, struggling a little. “I won’t _really_ take you apart, not without your permission of course. I don’t suppose you’d consider _giving_ me your permission, would you?”

“NO!” Mettaton snapped. Gaster blinked, looking as though he was totally unawares as to why he’d just been reprimanded. His right eye was drooping more than usual and he seemed to be at least a foot or two shorter, the inky black of his coat spread out on the floor under him. Mettaton grimaced and quickly turned away, using his integrated cellphone to call Papyrus. No answer. He frowned and waited for the beep to leave a voicemail: “Papyrus darling, please pick up. If you could come back over here, I think Doctor Gaster could use a bit of…” Mettaton turned just in time to see that the doctor had produced a cellphone from seemingly nowhere and was making a call himself.

“Hello Doctor Alphys, this is Doctor Gaster. I am completely sober and I would like to ask some very intimate questions about Mettaton. First--”

“DOCTOR!” Mettaton choked, lunging at Gaster. He slammed into the monster’s side and snatched the phone away from his face. Gaster glanced at him, mildly startled; then his stability began to fail again and Mettaton sucked in a startled gasp as they both nearly collapsed to the floor. The phone fell and cracked against the floor. Gaster looked down at it, dismayed, as his body’s shape readjusted and Mettaton staggered back upright. Then Mettaton abruptly shoved him down the hallway and away from the crowd.

…

Alphys jumped as the Mew Mew Kissy Cutie theme song began playing loudly in her pocket. She rather frantically fished the phone out and thumbed down the volume with embarrassment while Sans grinned to himself and pretended not to notice. “Oh,” she squeaked out, a little startled, and Sans turned back toward her. She was looking at the phone in her hands, her head tilted to one side. “It’s your dad,” she said.

They were both in the back yard, Sans reclining in a patio chair and Alphys sitting on a blanket on the ground beside him. A number of monsters were milling about eating hotdogs and hamburgers, while the youngsters chased one another in games of tag and hide-and-seek. 

Sans raised a brow at her. “Really?”

Alphys turned the phone to him to display the caller: W.D. Gaster. “W-why would he be calling me?” Alphys asked. “I can’t understand him.”

Sans blinked. “Uh. I have no idea.” He took his phone out of his jacket pocket to make sure Gaster hadn’t already been trying to get ahold of him. There were no missed calls.

“I-isn’t he HERE?” Alphys asked, gesturing to the yard with a wave of one hand.

“Uh, I thought he was,” Sans remarked, taking a little look around himself. “He was with Pap a little while ago. Haven’t seen him in a while either though. Go ahead and answer it, I can understand him.”

Alphys tapped the screen to accept the call and moved the phone in between the two of them so they could both hear. “Hello?”

“Hello Doctor Alphys,” Gaster’s voice came in, light and casual and so perfectly easy to understand that Aphys almost dropped the phone, “this is Doctor Gaster. I am completely sober and I would like to ask some very intimate questions about Mettaton. First--”

There was a yell and a sound of impact and some noises of a struggle. Alphys and Sans looked at each other in confusion. Then there was a loud crack and the call cut out. Alphys turned to Sans, looking rather on the verge of a panic. She tried to redial the number but there was no answer. “I-I could understand him!” Alphys blurted.

Sans took a moment to consider, glancing around the yard. “Yeah,” he muttered. “He’s drunk. He’s very drunk.” There was no immediate sign of Gaster or Mettaton outside, nor could Sans catch a glimpse of his brother among the monsters. He looked down at his own phone and dialed Papyrus. No answer. Alphys quickly returned her attention to her phone and tried Mettaton’s internal number.

After two rings, he answered, sounding uncharacteristically disheveled. “Alphys!”

“M-Mettaton??” she stammered. “Are you alright? A-are you with Doctor Gaster?”

“YES!” he said, urgently. “ And I need your help, darling! We’re--!” There was the sudden sound of struggle and then a crash, followed by a series of metallic clicks and hydraulic hisses. The line began to static, cutting out.

Alphys felt her heart pounding as she listened on the other end, waiting for a response, wondering if she’d been cut off. “M-mettaton??”

Static. Hissing.

Then Mettaton’s voice, fuzzy on the other end: “D...Did you just _flip my switch?!!_ ”

“Mettaton?!”

The line went dead. Alphys immediately tried calling again, but the call went straight to Mettaton’s voicemail. She cursed herself for allowing him to brush her off when she’d tried to insist he needed a new cell antennae installed. She’d never get through to him at this rate. She turned to Sans, distressed. He frowned and tried Toriel’s number.

“Hello, Sans.”

Sans breathed a little sigh of relief at getting someone. “Hey, Tori,” he said, still glancing around the yard. “Have you seen my dad or Mettaton around?”

“No, Sans,” she replied, sounding curious, “come to think of it, I haven’t. Is something wrong?”

Sans pushed himself up out of the chair and Alphys scrambled to her feet as well. “Dad’s drunk. He may or may not be pestering Mettaton somewhere around here. Would you help us look?”

“Of course, Sans. I’ll keep an eye out for them.”

“Thanks, Tori.”

…

Mettaton, reduced to his rectangular body, was slumped against Papyrus’ desk in the skeleton’s bedroom, having managed to force Gaster into the room with him, out of sight and (mostly) out of earshot of the crowd. Gaster was leaning on Mettaton’s back affectionately, both arms wrapped around the top of the robot’s body. He was incorrigible.

Mettaton’s cell signal had been troublesome lately, and essentially useless in his rectangular form. Alphys had insisted he needed new antennae installed, but he’d stubbornly informed her that he simply didn’t use the form nearly enough to justify her making unnecessary repairs on it. The signal in EX’s body worked _fine._ There was no need for her to tamper with near-perfection.

He’d never hear the end of this later.

He assumed that at SOME point, someone in the immediate family would have to realize he and Gaster were missing and hopefully find them. He didn’t know how long it would take though. But he was too mortified at the thought of Gaster spouting off something about him in front of the crowd to leave the room and let him loose in the party.

“You are never permitted to drink again,” Mettaton muttered, frustrated to hear his voice coming out of his speakers instead of a mouth. “Do you hear me? I am telling Sans and Papyrus to cut you off. Do you have even the slightest awareness of how you’re behaving?”

Gaster let out an affectionate little sigh from behind him and slurred confidently, “The introduction of alcohol to an organism’s bloodstream results in behavior which is not confined by the inhibitions of social propriety. Therefore, I am behaving in a way that is reflective of my true nature, undeterred by personal restraints and--” He hiccuped. “--filters.”

Mettaton’s display flickered to an array of red pixels, annoyed. “Fabulous,” he muttered.

Gaster smiled a strange and not altogether reassuring smile. “I’ve always been very fond of Alphys’ original design for your body...”

“Please stop talking,” Mettaton muttered with discomfort, feeling his fans kicking on as his internal temperature rose with embarrassment. 

He felt Gaster’s grip on him shift slightly and he immediately attempted take advantage of it, lunging forward, only to be tugged back against the monster again with a small _thump_. The robot’s display lit up with the image of a frustrated emoticon. He could feel Gaster, subtle though the sensation was in this body, tinkering with something out of sight behind him. “What are you doing back there?!”

“There is one thing, I have...always wondered,” Gaster slurred, fiddling with a small panel above Mettaton’s switch with a small screwdriver that he’d produced from the void. “Why...do you wear your Soul in such a vulnerable location on EX’s form? It is so much more secure in this form…”

“That’s none of your business,” Mettaton muttered. He tensed a bit, listening to the sound of whatever Gaster was tinkering with on his back. He was _almost certain_ he could still feel both of Gaster’s arms wrapped around him, and yet… “What are you _doing?!_ ”

“Shh.” A hand appeared in front of Mettaton’s display panel, holding one finger up in a ‘shh’ gesture. It took a moment for Mettaton to realize the hand was not in any way, shape, or form attached to the Doctor, but was instead disembodied and hovering quite confidently in front of him. Mettaton recoiled from the thing, bumping back into Gaster again who made a little oof but was otherwise undeterred. Immediately, a pair of disembodied hands much like the first appeared and gripped Mettaton by the wrists, holding him steady. The robot tensed, his fans kicking in louder as panic threatened to set in. “Hold still, please,” Gaster slurred. “I am a scientist.”

“Since when have you had magic?!” Mettaton yelped, as a distressed pattern of pixels flashed across the his display and a series of hands appeared in front of him, a row of them, mirroring Gaster’s own white, skeletal hands with smooth, white holes in their palms. Behind Mettaton, Gaster opened the panel on the robot’s back using another disembodied hand that mirrored his own right hand, a mirror of his left hand still holding the screwdriver as it hovered in the air.

“How curious,” Gaster murmured, leaning closer. “So where precisely _is_ the Soul contained in this form…?”

Panicking, Mettaton abruptly rolled backwards into Gaster, knocking into him hard enough to upset the fragile man. Gaster rocked back and fell to the floor with a startled noise, clinging to Mettaton for as long as he could with his _actual_ hands, but his barely stable form had had just about enough. It collapsed and Mettaton tore free, but by the time he reached the door, several of those disembodied hands had attached themselves to him and were doing their best to drag him backward.

He had just reached for the doorknob when he felt his something suddenly catch inside of him, a vaguely familiar although not at all enjoyable sensation of having his Soul turned blue. He made a panicked noise, stretching his arm and finding that the disembodied hand on his wrist was tugging back on him quite hard. 

“Ah! There it is!” Gaster exclaimed. “The Soul!” Mettaton cursed, his fingers slipping off the doorknob as he began to be dragged backwards, using all his power to turn his wheel in the other direction with little success. 

He heard footsteps in the hall, the quiet creak of the floorboards in the old house. Despite his total horror at the thought of being seen by a fan in this compromising scenario, he was in no mind to be dismantled by his boyfriend’s drunk father during a child’s birthday party.

“HELP!”

A brief silence outside, during which Mettaton continued to struggle. Then suddenly, the door opened and Gaster, startled, released his influence on the robot’s Soul, and Mettaton pitched forward onto his face on the floor. 

Toriel stood in the doorway, looking from one of them to the other: Gaster, now a mostly melted lump of pitch peering guiltily up at her from across the room, and Mettaton, a somewhat worse-for-wear rectangle lying on the floor just in front of him, with several strange, disembodied white hands carefully peeling off his edges one by one and drifting back to their master.

“What on Earth is going on in here?” Toriel asked, her tone a mix of accusation and concern.

Gaster slowly raised a hand--one which was not physically connected to him--with the pointer finger up, sheepishly. “I can explain--” He hiccuped loudly.

“TORIEL.”

Toriel’s brow knit and she looked down at Mettaton as he thrust a hand upward toward her. She hesitated, then took the hand, pulling him up back on his wheel. He took a moment to steady himself before brushing off the front of his screen with both hands. He spun once, casting a disparaging emoticon at Gaster (Toriel noticed the open panel on his back and tilted her head curiously), and then he sped out of the room and into the hall. Toriel glanced after him, then returned her attention to the lump of Gaster across the room. He lowered the hand, though it still hovered in the air in front of him. She shut the door quietly behind her.

“Doctor, what in Heaven’s name were you doing?” she asked, her tone wavering still between anger and worry.

“Science,” Gaster said lamely, hiccuping again. He wasn’t recovering well from his loss of stability and the disembodied hands he had conjured were hovering around him, forming signs as he spoke. They shied away slightly as Toriel came near.

She hunkered down to his level, resting her arms on her knees. He gazed up at her, struggling a little to keep his bone-white skull out of the inky muck that was the rest of him. “I’m disappointed in you, Doctor. You know better than to treat Mettaton like that. He’s more than just a machine for you to poke at.”

“He’s remarkable,” Gaster murmured, but the fire seemed to have gone out of him. Toriel sighed and reached down with both hands, gripping him gently in the approximate location of where his underarms might be. He came up from the floor with difficulty, leaving a trail of black ooze that continued to slough off of him as she moved him to the bed and managed to set him down on it. He clung to her with several pairs of hands, though the excess pairs withdrew once he was on the bed, signing once again when he spoke. “T-toriel, that was not necessary, I am quite capable of...taking care of myself…” He flinched a little and one of the floating hands rubbed at the crack under his eye. When Toriel looked at him, she realized she couldn’t quite tell any longer which of hands were ‘real’; his arms seemed to have melted into the rest of him.

“I don’t understand you, Doctor,” Toriel said softly, sitting beside him. He leaned over on her without intent, too unstable to remain upright himself. “I thought you had promised to behave yourself with Mettaton...You _know_ better than to pursue him like a child taking apart his toys. You are not a child. And he is no toy.”

Gaster gazed blearily across the room, his weight heavy and damp on her side. “You are saying...I have done something wrong.” He was still speaking in a fashion Toriel could understand, but his speech was slowing, slurring as he continued to slump against her. 

“ _You_ know you’ve done something wrong,” Toriel said firmly. “You’re not so drunk as to be totally unawares of what you are doing.”

Gaster made a frustrated sound beside her and turned his skull into her shoulder, burying his face there. “There are so many--” He hiccuped. “-- _people_ in the house…”

“Yes, there are,” she said softly, putting a large, soft arm around his shoulders--or at least, the approximate estimation of them. “But that does not excuse your behavior.” His body was trembling a little; she could tell he was using the last bit of his reserve strength to keep up what little form it still had. Such a strange monster…

He closed his eyes, sighing against her. Toriel carefully took out her phone and dialed Sans before raising the phone it to her ear. Sans’ voice was loud on the other end: “Tori!! Did you find them?!” 

“Yes, Sans,” she replied, her tone calm and even. “I’ve found your father. We’re in Papyrus’ bedroom. ...Mettaton’s left, but he looked more or less fine to me. ...Yes, Doctor Gaster’s settled down. I don’t suspect he’ll be awake for much longer.” Toriel blinked as one of Gaster’s disembodied hands curled around the phone and began to gently tug at it.

“Is that Sans?” he murmured.

“Yes, Doctor, behave now,” she said gently, urging the hand away. It hovered in the air, looking somehow dismayed. “I’ll stay with him til you get here,” she said into the phone. “Don’t rush, Sans. He’ll be fine.” She ended the call and glanced down at Gaster again with a small smirk. “How surprising, after all you have done to the appliances in this house, to find out that you are actually quite _hand_ y.” Gaster smiled weakly, opening one eye to glance up at her. She smiled back, proud of herself. “I didn’t know you had magic.”

Gaster remained silent at that.

“Just full of mysteries, aren’t you, Doctor?”

Gaster gazed up at her tiredly, then he shifted his weight slightly and slipped both arms (which rose from the goop still dripping and tarry) around her, holding onto her gently. The various other hands that had been hovering about him flickered out of sight and Gaster slumped, a vaguely amorphous blob, against Toriel’s side. “You’re very kind…”

“Thank you, Doctor. I try to be.”

Gaster was silent for a moment. “I’m very drunk…”

“Yes, you are.”

Toriel looked up as she heard Sans suddenly stumble into the room in a flicker of blue light. The door was still closed and Sans looked a little rattled by the shortcut; it had not been a familiar one. He looked up at her, then at Gaster, and back again. “...everything okay?”

Toriel smiled confidently. “Everything’s fine, Sans, I said as much.” 

Sans stepped over slowly, immediately grimacing when he came close enough to smell the alcohol on Gaster. He looked down over the bed and onto the floor, where Gaster was still half-melted. Spots of black goop trailed across the floor. “God, he’s a mess…”

“I believe he left Mettaton in one piece, at the very least,” Toriel said.

Sans grimaced up at her. “He was really trying to take him apart?”

A disembodied hand clamped itself on Sans’ shoulder and he jumped with a small start, looking at it, then turning sharply to Gaster. Gaster’s eyes were still closed where he sat slumped against Toriel. “Sans, you should have seen,” he slurred.

Sans grinned a little wryly, glancing at the hand on his shoulder again, then up at Toriel. She shrugged with uncertainty. “It appears your father has access to some magic we weren’t aware of.”

Gaster smiled sleepily and released Sans’ shoulder, giving him a pat on the jaw before the hand flickered out of existence. 

Together, the two of them managed to disentangle Gaster from Toriel’s fur and get him as much up onto the bed as possible. Papyrus wasn’t going to be pleased at the total destruction of his bedsheets, but Sans could get him some new ones.

Once Gaster had been settled and had slipped into what appeared to be peaceful sleep, Sans and Toriel slipped out of the room and went in search of the others.

…

Gaster squeezed his eyes shut against the light, tugging at the blankets on the bed and finding them strangely absent. Or no. Not absent. They were under him, instead of over him. He shifted and flinched and made a sound of quiet pain at the pang of an ache in his forehead. Why was it so bright in his room?

“Morning, Dad.”

Gaster’s eyes opened, he blinked at the wall in front of him and then shifted, twisting to look over his shoulder. Sans was seated in Papyrus’ desk chair, watching him. He stared for a moment. Glanced around the room. This wasn’t his room at all. It was Papyrus’. He looked toward the window and flinched at the light, shielding his eyes with a hand. “/S-sans? What...What’s happened?/”

“Oh, y’know,” Sans said, leaning back in the chair with a creak. “Frisk’s birthday party was last night.”

Gaster froze. A moment ticked by.

“/Oh./”

“Yeah.”

“/Oh no.../”

“Yeeeah.” Sans scratched at the back of his neck before stretching his arms over his head. “You had quite a night, old man.”

“/Oh Sans!/” Gaster sat up abruptly and cursed under his breath, taking his head in his hands for a moment. He flinched and looked up, horrified. “/I-I was speaking, t-they could understand me!” A look of utter distress descended upon him. “M-m-mettaton…/”

Sans lowered his arms onto the arms of the chair, cocking his head to the side. "Well hey, look on the bright side, Dad. At least you didn't make any passes at MY significant other."

"/I WASN'T MAKING PASSES!/” Gaster yelped. He flinched again and pressed the heel of his palm to his forehead. “/...oh. Oh god, though. The things I _said_. I told him I wanted to take him apart./"

"You did, yeah."

"/And I meant it./"

"Yeah, you might have tried to a little."

"/Oh god./"

"Hey, we got him put back together, he’s fine."

“/Sans, please,/” Gaster moaned, leaning back against the wall with a _thud_. At the very least, he seemed to be quite stable again, physically. "/I can never speak to anyone ever again./"

"Dad.”

“/Oh, how could this happen…?/” Gaster whined, pressing his hands to his eyes. “/I was absolutely terrible...I wouldn’t let him go, I used my magic on hi--MY MAGIC!/” Gaster yelped suddenly, lifting a hand and thrusting it in the direction of the desk. Papyrus’ desk lamp immediately went shooting off the desk and hurtling across the room past Sans like a bullet, where it smashed into the far wall with a loud crash and a few sparks as the plug was wrenched from the outlet. 

Sans had pressed himself back deep into the chair, a hand to his chest, startled and staring. “S-shit, Dad. God.”

Gaster curled his fingers in toward his palm, slowly drawing his hand in toward his chest, looking both ashamed and distraught. “/...it was working,/” he murmured, glancing down at his hand. He focused on a space just to the right of his palm and a brief, half-corporeal object vaguely resembling a hand flickered into view and then out again. “/It was working a-and I was speaking normally. But how? Why? Was it the alcohol?/”

“Dad.”

“/Is it possible that a mind-altering substance might circumvent the various defects in my magic?/” Gaster murmured, looking down at his palms. “/By eliminating my inhibitions, it frees both the use of my magic and my ability to speak, thereby granting me access to aspects of my magic formerly unattainable t--/”

“/Hey, Dad!/”

Gaster looked up, startled. Sans was giving him a hard stare. “You _tried to take Mettaton apart_.”

Gaster stared at him, blushing faintly, then looking down at his hands again quickly. “/...yes, of course. Some questions are best left unanswered./” He fidgeted with his hands, sighing with embarrassment. He looked up sharply at the sound of fast approaching footsteps, and sunk back into the wall as the door was suddenly thrown open and Papyrus burst in, fiery accusation in his eyes. 

“YOU’RE AWAKE!”

Gaster flinched and closed his eyes, shrinking even more. “/P-Papyrus.../”

Papyrus put one hand firmly on his hip, pointing an accusing finger at Gaster with the other. “YOU PROMISED NO MORE TRYING TO TAKE METTATON APART!”

“/I-I know,/” Gaster groaned. “/I’m sorry, Papyrus.../”

Papyrus opened his mouth to go on but faltered a little at the sight of Gaster cowering against the wall, obviously fighting off the pain of his hangover. He closed his jaw and glanced at Sans, who hadn’t raised a finger to stop his brother from where he sat reclining in the desk chair. He looked up at Papyrus evenly, silent. He didn’t really want to get involved, but he wasn’t about to fault Papyrus for being upset. Papyrus took a breath and turned back to Gaster, struggling to control his tone: “Dad...He said you used blue magic on him.”

Gaster nodded stiffly, his eyes still closed. “/Yes. I did. Please convey my intense regret and apologies...I was quite inebriated, which he was well aware of…/”

Papyrus sighed, sounding a bit more exasperated with Gaster than he would have liked. Gaster noticed. When Papyrus turned to his brother for some sort of support, Sans only shrugged. Frustrated but not wanting to be angry at either of them, Papyrus stomped a foot and turned on heel, stalking back out without another word. Gaster looked after him helplessly as Sans pushed himself up out of the chair. 

“Here,” Sans said, holding out Gaster’s cellphone. Gaster reached forward, trembling a little, and Sans placed the phone in his hands. It was somewhat worse for wear, the screen now cracked, but it still seemed to be working when he pressed the button on its side. “Guess Mettaton knocked it out of your hand last night,” Sans remarked, fixing Gaster with a solemn but serious stare. “I fixed it best I could.” Gaster frowned quietly but said nothing. Sans regarded him for a moment longer, then took a step back toward the doorway. “Well. I’ll get ya some tea.”

“/Thank you, Sans,/” Gaster murmured, still gazing at the phone as his son slipped out with a flicker of blue light.

Gaster sunk back against the wall again slowly, tapping the phone screen to unlock it, then reluctantly going through his calls from the night before. An outgoing call to Doctor Alphys (he remembered it more vividly than he wished he did), followed by three missed calls, one from Doctor Alphys and two from Sans. He sighed loudly and closed his eyes for a moment before scrolling through his contacts til he came to Mettaton’s, under the header ‘MTT’ in wingdings (a little bomb and two snowflakes) on his phone. He stared at the contact for a long while, trying to think of something he could say to the other monster: something decent, something heartfelt, something sincere and profusely apologetic.

He typed, _I’M SORRY_ in wingdings and hit send.

He immediately regretted it. ‘I’m sorry?’ What sort of genuine, heartfelt apology was that? Not only had he made a total fool of himself, he’d infringed on Mettaton’s personal space, used his magic on him without his consent. He’d been the worst possible version of himself, and there was no way a simple ‘I’m sorry’ was going to mean a thing to--

Gaster’s phone lit up. He swallowed and unlocked it. 

_MTT: Are you sober?_

Gaster hesitated before responding, _YES, JUST HUNGOVER._

_MTT: Good._

Gaster stared at the message. He sighed wearily. Well. That was that, then. It was just as well, he supposed. He had been a nuisance to Mettaton from the day they met. It would be better if they simply stopped interact--

His phone lit up again.

_MTT: I’m very upset with you._

Gaster hesitated, re-reading the message. It was a simple phrase, but it conveyed Mettaton’s willingness to continue the conversation, which was more than Gaster had expected or even hoped for. _YES, I WOULD EXPECT SO. I AM UPSET WITH MYSELF._

_MTT: You should be._

Gaster paused to gather his thoughts, then typed rather judiciously: _THE WAY I TREATED YOU WAS VERY WRONG. I AM INCREDIBLY ASHAMED. AND SORRY. I SHOULD NOT HAVE ACTED AS I DID. I SHOULD NOT HAVE BEEN DRINKING IN THE FIRST PLACE._

A few moments passed and Gaster feared he had said a wrong thing and Mettaton had given up on the conversation. Then, a reply.

_MTT: But?_

_BUT WHAT?_

_MTT: I’m expecting there to be a ‘but’ here. You should not have been drinking, BUT..._

Gaster paused, tilting his head slightly. Then he tapped out carefully, _NO BUTS...I WAS IN THE WRONG. I TAKE FULL RESPONSIBILITY FOR MY ACTIONS._

Another delay. Gaster wondered if Mettaton could inherently understand his wingdings, or if it took the robot’s internal processors a moment to translate the script. The phone lit up.

_MTT: That’s...admirable._

Gaster smiled wryly. Admirable? Mettaton must have had a low opinion of him indeed to think it admirable of him not to deny his very obvious wrongdoings. HARDLY, he typed back. _I HAVE NO INTEREST IN DODGING THE BLAME FOR SOMETHING WHICH I WAS CLEARLY AT FAULT FOR. I SHOULD NOT HAVE TOUCHED YOU WITHOUT YOUR PERMISSION, I SHOULD NOT HAVE ASKED SENSITIVE QUESTIONS ABOUT YOUR ORIGIN, I ABSOLUTELY SHOULD NOT HAVE USED MY MAGIC ON YOU. I AM VERY, VERY SORRY._

Mettaton didn’t reply right away and Gaster felt his gut tighten. He breathed out a trembling little sigh and flinched against the light still pouring into the room through Papyrus’ sheer curtains. Then his phone lit up again.

_MTT: You may consider your apology accepted, if for no other reason than because I’ve never heard of anyone being so upfront about admitting their blame for something._

Gaster relaxed slowly, smiling weakly down at the message. 

_IS THERE ANYTHING I CAN DO TO ATONE OR MY ACTIONS?_ he asked.

There was a delay while Mettaton no doubt considered his options.

_MTT: Give Doctor Alphys a call. The way you behaved last night was atrocious, but it would appear you’ve developed some new interests in me in the past few months...I can honestly say, I don’t believe anyone had ever loved Doctor Alphys’ work more than you, Doctor. Except Papyrus, of course, but for entirely different reasons~_

Gaster tilted his head toward the open doorway where Papyrus had stormed off. He would have to apologize to him as well once his head finished throbbing. He wondered what sort of state Mettaton had been in by the time he found Papyrus after Toriel had aided him in escaping. Had he been fuming? Panicking? Did he blame Papyrus for not responding to his calls sooner? The phone lit up again.

_MTT: Although you are a uniquely troublesome example, Doctor, I DO have MANY fans here on the Surface...But the good Doctor Alphys has very few. And you know quite well, Doctor, that you may fawn over ME, but it is Doctor Alphys whom you are truly the fan of. So, please speak to her. Sober. And with my privacy in mind._

Gaster considered Mettaton’s words carefully and replied, _I WILL DO SO._

He smiled, closing his eyes against the light and relishing the feeling of relief that had settled upon him. There was a soft rustle across the room, followed by the familiar _zip_ of mini blinds being released before they clattered against the windowsill noisily, plunging the room into not-quite-darkness. Gaster opened his eyes with a start and turned toward the window, where sunlight had been pouring in just a moment ago. The blinds were still trembling slightly with the impact of the fall. And a white hand, skeletal and marked with a round white hole in its center, hovered in the air beside the blinds’ cords. Gaster felt his breath catch in his throat just as it flickered back out of existence.


End file.
